Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,
Gun Owners of America and members of Congress are renewing their call for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to destroy approximately 1.4 billion ATF records that they call an illegal gun registry.
ATF Director Robert Cekada and President Donald Trump say ATF databases comply with federal law while providing an important crime-fighting tool.
Cekada tells a story about the widow of a former ATF employee who wanted the agency to generate a list of her husband's firearms so she could account for them.
"I said, 'Ma'am, I'm sorry, we can't do that.' And she was shocked because she thought, like everyone thinks, that we have this ability. We just don't," Cekada told The Epoch Times.
In a 2022 report, Gun Owners of America Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston wrote that the ATF has a database ready to be converted into an "illegal gun owner registry."
In 2021, the gun-rights advocacy group revealed an ATF internal document that showed the Biden administration had processed and digitized more than 50 million "out of business" records from Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) that had closed.
1.4 Billion Records Stored, Estimates Show
Combining those with the files the agency already had, plus files surrendered since, makes the current total about 1.4 billion, Gun Owners of America stated.
The documents are ATF Transacti
